There are many products, as exemplified by paper tissue, toweling and napkins, etc., which are commonly provided to consumers in stacked form as packs of folded or interfolded individual sheets. These packs of stacked sheets are often staple items which must be produced at very low cost. Producing such products at low cost typically requires the use of systems that use high-speed processes and equipment.
These systems will typically convert one or more continuous webs of product that will be cut into sheets, folded or interfolded, separated into individual stacks, and then packaged. To reduce costs, it is important to maximize the efficiency of all equipment within the system such that all components are being operated at or near peak capacity.
Further, while these systems form a relatively small product, to provide large volume production the systems themselves are often very large. To further reduce cost, it is desirous to reduce the overall footprint of the system.
One portion of the system that can be run at very high speeds and that typically takes up a large footprint is the web feed arrangement that processes the continuous web of material and feeds it to a cutting arrangement. This system usually includes one or more rolls of web like product and devices for manipulating the web like product such as roll unwind stands, embossers, combiners, calendaring rolls, printing rolls, etc. Typically, this portion of the system does not limit the overall output of the system and is operated at less than peak capacity.
Additionally, it can be beneficial to produce stacks of folded sheets that have different characteristics. For instance, it could be desirable to form stacks of sheets that have different number of panels per folded sheet. For instance, it could be desired to form some stacks of sheets that have 3 panels while other stacks of sheets have 4 panels or 2 panels. Further, it could be desired to form small stacks having 25 sheets per stack and bulk stack that have 500 sheets, for example. Thus, flexibility in a system is also desirable.
The present invention provides improvements over the current state of the art that address one or more of these issues.